A few weeks ago we reviewed a reprint from America bearing the title 'The Island of Cuba,' by Alexander Humboldt, with Notes and a Preliminary Essay by J. S. Thrasher.

The publication, as we said at the time, appeared to be issued as a vehicle for the notes,--and Baron Humboldt very properly refuses to sanction the use of his name for such a purpose.

The Spener'she Zeitung of July 25 contains the following protest from the Nestor of Travel:--

"Berlin, July.

"In the year 1826, I published in Paris, under the title of 'Essai Politique sur l'Isle de Cuba,' in two volumes, all that the large edition of my 'Voyage aux Regions Equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent,' T. III., contained on the state of agriculture and slavery in the Antilles.

At the same time an English and a Spanish translation of this work were published, the latter entitled 'Ensayo Politico sobre la Isla de Cuba,' and of course neither of these omitted any of the frank and open remarks which feelings of humanity had inspired.

Just now, strangely enough, the publishers, Derby & Jackson, of New York, have issued, translated from the Spanish translation, and not from the French original, an octavo volume of 400 pages under the title of 'The Island of Cuba,' by Alexander Humboldt, with Notes and a Preliminary Essay by J. S. Thrasher.

The translator, who has lived a long time on that beautiful island, has enriched my work by more recent facts on the subject of the population, on the cultivation of the soil, and the state of trade, and, generally speaking, has exhibited a charitable moderation in his discussion of conflicting opinions.

I owe it, however, to a moral feeling, that is now as lively in me as it was in 1826, publicly to complain that in a work which bears my name the entire seventh chapter of the Spanish translation (pp.

261-287), with which my essai politique ended, has been arbitrarily omitted.

To this very portion of my work I attach greater importance than to any astronomical observations, experiments of magnetic intensity, or statistical statements.

'J'ai examine avec franchise (I repeat the words which I used thirty years ago) ce qui concerne l'organisation des societes humaines dans les colonies, l'inegale repartition des droits et de jouissances de la vie, les dangers menacants que la sagesse des legislateurs et la moderation des hommes libres peuvent eloigner, quelleque soit la forme des Gouvernements. Il appartient au voyageur qui a vu de pres ce qui tourmente et degrade la nature humaine de faire parvenir les plaintes de l'infortune a ceux qui ont le devoir des les soulager.

J'ai rappele dans cet expose combien l'ancienne legislation Espagnolle de l'esclavage est moins inhumaine et moins atroce que celle des Etats a esclaves dans l'Amerique continentale au nord et au sud de l'equateur.' A constant advocate as I am for the most unfettered expression of opinion in speech or in writing, I should never have thought of complaining if I had been attacked on account of my statements.

But I think I am entitled to demand that in the free States of America people should be allowed to read what has been permitted to circulate from the first year of its appearance in a Spanish translation.

"Alexander von Humboldt."

--The request appears very reasonable to the European mind, not much agitated with the peculiar institution.

But Mr. Thrasher writes for a more susceptible public.

We notice in this appeal to the press renewed evidence of the extraordinary intellectual vigour of a traveller counting eighty-seven summers.